Due to increasing pet populations, certain large cities have adopted ordinances requiring pet owners to clean up after their pets. Even in areas where such cleanliness is not a prescribed ordinance, it is often desirable to dispose of pet waste and the like in order to maintain attractive lawns and streets which are safe to walk on without soiling one's shoes.
There have been various attempts to deal with these problems in the past. Some individuals have been known to place one of their hands inside a bag of flexible material, such as plastic, as if it were a glove, pick up the waste material using the “gloved” hand, and pull the end of the bag off of the hand in a manner so as to invert the bag around the waste material and package it for later disposal. However, this “gloved” hand method is esthetically unpleasing and otherwise unpleasant to the pet owner, particularly if the bag breaks at an opportune moment.
Other devices utilize a plastic bag and a frame, or multiple frames that may be collapsible and are used as scoops or shovels to place the waste material within the bag so that the bag may be inverted around the excrement and packaged for disposal. However, all these methods suffer from the fact that the waste is biologically active and therefore possess environmental hazards.
A gel composition containing oxidizing agents and thickening or gelling agents has also been proposed to detoxify chemical and biological agents by application directly to a contaminated area. The gelling agent is a colloidal material, such as silica, alumina, or alumino-silicate clays, which forms a viscous gel that does not flow when applied to tilted or contoured surfaces. After decontamination, the residue can be washed away or vacuumed up for disposal.